Words 8.5

 Words Twice a Week         8.5

If you are more into listening than reading, Words Twice a Week is available, along with other good stuff, as a podcast from St Paul’s Episcopal Church.  Click here.

Ok – we’re back.  Knee is still swollen, stiff, and sore, but I guess we are recovering.  

Some thoughts on some of the lessons for Sunday – Aug 8

And just to note that with my little vacation, unfortunately we missed two of my favorite “David stories” – first about how “in the spring when kings go to war”, David sent the army but stayed and ended up doing the deed with Bathsheba and then tried (and finally succeeded) in getting Uriah killed, and then second how “this displeased the Lord” who sent Nathan to spin the story about the little ewe lamb to which David said that man should be punished and Nathan said – “You are that man!”   Wow.

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33

+ here’s what Frederick Buechner has to say about David and Absalom -

ALMOST FROM THE start, Absalom had a number of strikes against him. For one thing, he was much too handsome for his own good, and his special pride was such a magnificent head of hair that once a year when he had it trimmed, the trimmings alone tipped the scales at three and a half pounds. For another thing, his father, King David, was always either spoiling him rotten or reading him the riot act. This did not promote stability of character. He murdered his lecherous brother Amnon for fooling around with their sister Tamar, and when the old war-horse Joab wouldn't help him patch things up with David afterwards, he set fire to his hay field. All Israel found this kind of derring-do irresistible, of course, and when he eventually led a revolt against his father, a lot of them joined him. 

   On the eve of the crucial battle, David was a wreck. If he was afraid he might lose his throne, he was even more afraid he might lose Absalom. The boy was the thorn in his flesh, but he was also the apple of his eye, and before the fighting started, he told the chiefs of staff till they were sick of hearing it that if Absalom fell into their clutches, they must promise to go easy on him for his father's sake. Remembering what had happened to his hay field, old Joab kept his fingers crossed, and when he found Absalom caught in the branches of an oak tree by his beautiful hair, he ran him through without blinking an eye. When they broke the news to David, it broke his heart, just as simple as that, and he cried out in words that have echoed down the centuries ever since. "O my son Absalom, my son, my son," he said. "Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son" (2 Samuel 18:33). 

   He meant it, of course. If he could have done the boy's dying for him, he would have done it. If he could have paid the price for the boy's betrayal of him, he would have paid it. If he could have given his own life to make the boy alive again, he would have given it. But even a king can't do things like that. As later history was to prove, it takes a God.  

+ Did you ever read Absalom, Absalom by Faulkner?  I did, years ago.  Don’t know if I really understood it -

+ And so what about Joab – he kills Absalom, but that ends the fighting.  Does war always present us with compromise solutions?

+ one writer notes that 2 Samuel 13-19 shows us “a David who has replaced justice with a sentimentality that is limited to his own family.”  Is that something “we” (family, church, country, culture?) have a tendency to do?  “David stays in power, but in the end, everyone is dirty.”

+ David’s sexual mistreatment of Bathsheba and resulting “murder” of Uriah by Joab gets repeated in David’s offspring (Amnon and Tamar, murder by Absalom, murder of Absalom by Joab).

1 Kings 19.4-8

+ Elijah has had a “successful” prophetic campaign against Ahab, Jezebel, and the prophets of Baal, with the result that Jezebel has put a price on his head and he heads for the desert wilderness.  Where would you go?

+ where are the “wild, wildness, wilderness” places in your life?

+ when he comes to the end of the road, so to speak, angels come with food and water “for the journey”, suggesting that Elijah still has things to do for God.

+ have there been times when you were really hungry, thirsty?  Have there been times you thought you had done all the God wanted, only to find an angel with “provisions for the journey”?

+ he’s “under a broom tree” – it recalls Moses and the burning bush, Jacob and the stone pillow/ladder.  Any place can be, is, holy.

Ps 34.1-8

+ a psalm for people who have come through the trouble and distress to ther security of the salvation/redeemed side.  Where are we along that journey?  What gives you confidence? What leaves you still distressed?

+ note that the entire psalm is not addressed to God, but rather to the congregation/community, encouraging them to learn from the psalmist’s expereince.

+ “Taste and see that the Lord is good”  Communion?  Eucharist?  How, what, do “the tastes of communion” tell us about God?

+ “Taste and see” – coffee and a cinnamon roll?  Pizza fresh from the oven?  

+ “Taste and see” - Here’s Buechner on “Wine”

   UNFERMENTED GRAPE juice is a bland and pleasant drink, especially on a warm afternoon mixed half-and-half with ginger ale. It is a ghastly symbol of the life blood of Jesus Christ, especially when served in individual antiseptic, thimble-sized glasses. 

   Wine is booze, which means it is dangerous and drunk-making. It makes the timid brave and the reserved amorous. It loosens the tongue and breaks the ice especially when served in a loving cup. It kills germs. As symbols go, it is a rather splendid one. 

John 6.35, 41-51

+ “I am the bread of life” – “What does that even mean?”  We were watching Schitt’s Creek and the son would wrinkle up his face and say “What does that even mean?”  In the beginning of the passage it means the “Word of God”, by the end of the passage it means Jesus’ flesh. Hmmm.

+ after the feeding of the 5000, the people wanted more bread.  But (one writer claims) the fundamental hunger is for the world of God.  Think so?  How does that play out in your life?

+ “No one can come to me unless the Father calls them” – Coming to faith is a joint activity between humans and God.  And sometimes an individual human, sometimes human communities.

+ and just to note that while John speaks about “the Jews” as Jesus’ opponents, everybody in the whole story is in fact Jewish!

+ “And I will raise them up, and I will raise them up, and I will raise them up on the last day”

Here’s a prayer -

God of all places and times,

from the first cup of coffee in the morning

to the last piece of midnight snack pizza;

from our living room to the wild places of our world,

you are there and you are good.

Help me today not just to tell you that,

but also to tell of your goodness to those I encounter.

I pray in the name of the Bread of Life, your Son, Jesus.

That’s what I got for now…..

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